The Critters are Out!

Trail Angel Mamma leaves her mark everywhere.

We made it about 2o miles over the last 2 days in just over 13 hours of hiking time. We were lucky to have beautiful weather, although the abundant sunshine made things as hot and humid as ever. It hit 90 degrees both days we were out, and I definitely had the sweat on my forehead to prove it. The entire hike was a high elevation ridge walk, so pretty flat except for the big climbs up and down to the ridge. For the most part, the trees made for scarce views, but in a few spots there were wide open meadows. The amazing thing about these meadows was that they were all completely full of butterfly bushes and blackberries, making them prime habitats for critters. And they were out in droves.

Kudzu Tunnel to Butterfly Field.

Butterfly Bushes.

Butterflies.

Bunny.

Frog.

Two of the most exciting critters we met on this hike were as scary as they were beautiful:

Rattlesnake.

Look close. See it? Bear!

I was one step away from stomping on the rattlesnake when I finally noticed it laying in the trail. It was being sneaky and not using its rattle. It didn't even move while we stood there and looked at it. So we went around it. In this instance, fangs won out over superior intelligence for right-of-way to the trail. The bear looked at us like we scared it more than it scared us. It stuck around just long enough to snap a picture, then went running off through the blackberry bushes. We saw that big guy about 100 yards from our campsite for the night. I was concerned about camping so close to bear territory, but nothing bothered us or our food all night.

Camp Nano at the edge of the field.

Sunset at Camp Nano.

We got finished in time today to get back to the RV to cool off and have some good food. It'll be another overnight on the trail tomorrow, and I hope there are as many things to see as there were on this section. Perhaps a few that are less deadly, though.

Hiking Buddies.